A method of ranking and distinction is an essential piece of a meritocracy. In order for individuals to rise, to matriculate, to gain merit, there have to be people who don’t. That sounds grim, but Gatto’s essay is a bit idealized. He implies that if society rid mass schooling, and each child was homeschooled or self-educated (“managed themselves”), children would acquire leadership skills and critical insight—but nay. I think kids, especially nowadays, would sit at home and watch TV all day, and that would truly be “not growing up.” Ben Franklin, George Washington and crew—they are convenient outliers to Gatto’s argument: they are exceptional individuals who were (conveniently) not educated in a mass-schooling system.
This is not to say that the mass schooling system is messed up, because it sounds pretty messed up. There needs to be an emphasis on critical thinking in education—students do need to learn how to manage themselves, to think for themselves and problem solve. I think Williams does this exceptionally well. Williams promotes creative problem solving and demotes mundane task-oriented work (I think). This problem is indeed easier to solve in a small liberal arts college—a public school with 4,000 students is much different. It sounds like teaching methods need to change, but I don’t think required education needs to cease.
That “method of ranking and distinction” becomes even more insidious when the society is not, in fact, the pure meritocracy it presents itself as, but a society where outcomes are determined by an entangled web of socio-economic status, race, gender, and constructs of ability inextricable from the previous factors. His lionizing of the founding fathers is more than “convenient” (though it certainly is that – does the supposed untouchability of their exploits mean we would be better off with eighteenth century forms of transportation, sanitation, or literally any public service?); it is the very antithesis of the critical thinking he holds so dear. After all, the US founding fathers were not leaders of a true social revolution but of a war for political independence that transferred the jurisdiction of exploitation from one group of wealthy white men to another, and the society they initiated was built on the economy of slavery and genocide and the ideology of white supremacy that both justified those practices and is a major player in public education to this day. Christopher’s point that self management and hyper-individualism would not turn out so neatly is right on point, because homeschooling and its derivatives are as vulnerable to oppressive structures as public education is. Gatto recognizes the symptoms of a rampant, systemic problem, but completely misfires in identifying the sources of that problem.